Effective Teams Work Well Together

Imagine if a hockey team’s players and coaches decided they’d rather do each other’s jobs. How effective will that team be? The centre decides he’d be a good coach, so he swaps places with the head coach. The result is that we get an untested and possibly disastrous coach, and the new coach-become-centre gets beaten to the puck every time. Whether this is junior hockey or the NHL, this position swap will turn out badly, and the team will fail.

The Ineffective Team

This is a metaphor I’ve been using more and more when I speak to councils early in their term of office. There are lots of councillors who get elected by professing to the voters that they would, in essence, be a better coach than the current coach. Sometimes even the mayor – the team captain in this metaphor – is the one to claim this expertise.

It doesn’t work, and it won’t work. If the captain wanted to be the coach, perhaps she or he should have applied for that job instead of running in the election. Sometimes the captain thinks they can do both jobs; be both the centre and the coach. This won’t work either.

The Importance of Understanding

The most effective teams, whether in sports or in governance, understand their roles, stick to those roles, and learn all they can about those roles. The group that the citizens brought together may not be the most talented overall, but when they come together, they excel. A municipality in which council understands and sticks to governance, and where administrators carry out their role in an objective and fearless way, will outperform expectations and provide the best oversight and service delivery possible.

To continue with the metaphor, both the players and the coaches don’t ever stop practicing and training. They know they can always become better. The same can be true of councils. An orientation and onboarding at the start of the term isn’t enough.

A Changing Arena

Ignoring for now that a brand-new council member or mayor will only remember a portion of that training, the situation changes as the days and months roll on.

Provincial or federal legislation that was current and relevant a week after the election will evolve over four years. In a few orientations this time around, several returning councillors, mayors, and reeves have said that one of their main desires is to learn about what has changed legislatively over the past four years and how it affects them.

While legislation evolves, so do wise practices. Through learning from others’ successes and mistakes, the municipal team can avoid pitfalls and become even better at their game. I tell a lot of stories during an orientation because I think it’s a very good way to transfer knowledge based on someone’s lived experience.

Not Part of the Team

If a member of the team opts out of training or professional development, they are ignoring their responsibility to serve citizens as well as possible. With that said, I suspect we have all heard the fiscal hawk say that the budget for conference and professional development, whether for the CAO or for council is “fluff” and is used for “junkets”. I completely disagree. Gatherings of teams from all over the province or country are perhaps the best way to learn what to do and what not to do. I am highly suspicious that those hawks really are not pulling their weight as part of a team over the four years. They are often involved for personal benefit rather than the long-term benefit of their communities.

When I am asked to get involved as a referee in this metaphor about councils as teams, one of the first places I look for dysfunction is in role clarity. Who really wants to do the other person’s job? Who doesn’t trust the rest of their team or their coaches? If this trust does not exist, the best teams will not live up to their expectations. The players have to challenge each other to be better, and the coach has to be provided with permission to do the same. Only then will the municipal team be successful. Energy spent on distrust, infighting, and role obfuscation is energy that cannot be spent on good governance and effective service delivery.

My fundamental recommendation to elected officials, whether new or returning, is to ‘have the rules, know the rules, and follow the rules’. If one of those isn’t present, the rules of good governance really don’t exist in that municipality.

Your Stories

As I mentioned, I’m fond of stories. If you have a story about how role clarity has worked to your community’s benefit, or how the lack of clarity has got in the way, I’d be interested in hearing it. You can reach me at ian@strategicsteps.ca